“He was never sick,” said his wife, Margaret M. Schlereth. “He was normal the day before and morning of. He had just left a meeting and was walking down the hallway when he just fell. It was something with his heart, but they won’t know for a couple more weeks.”

Vassar High School Principal Paul J. Wojno remembers the 1999 graduate as a standout football player.

“He was one of our better football players at the time,” Wojno said, “just a good student who came in and did what he was supposed to do, exceled in football and went on to the military, where he did well.”

Schlereth missed most of the first year of his son Caleb’s life because of his third deployment for the U.S. Army — this time to Afghanistan. But when he returned home, they became best friends.

“He deployed when our son Caleb was 3 months old and came back when he was 15 months,” his wife said.

Jake, as she called him, “always said, ‘I don’t need any friends, I already have Caleb and you.’”

Sarah J. Piazza, 30, of Vassar was friends with the Schlereth in high school and remained a close friend of the couple.

“Jake was a very outgoing, charismatic and very kind person,” she said. “He graduated a year before me, with my husband."

Piazza, an art teacher in Vassar Public Schools, called Schlereth's death "an unexpected tragedy.”

His wife recalls how they met through a mutual friend.

“We started dating after he was already in the Army,” said Margaret Schlereth, also a Vassar native. “I was in my senior year at Michigan State (University).

"I loved writing notecards, and one of our friends suggested that I write to Jake while he was in Iraq.

“So I wrote him a notecard, and he wrote me a letter, then we started emailing each other.”

Schlereth said the couple dated long-distance before getting married.

“He has a big heart, he loves people, and we always had people over. Guys who he deployed with looked up to him. Some called him ‘Papa Bear,’” she said.

She recalls her surprise 30th birthday party — which really came as a surprise since it was no longer her birthday.

“The party was two weeks after my birthday, so I thought he hadn’t done much,” she said.

“He took me and Caleb out to dinner, and all of my coworkers and neighbors were there. I was completely surprised.”

He planned the surprise with the coordinator at her job, who manages her travel schedule, she said.

Officials say Schlereth was deployed once to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan. He received two Bronze stars, among other honors.